


Day 1:  A Promise, Again

by UltimateProtagonistNerd



Series: HimiKiyo Week Content [1]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Himikiyo Week 2020, Hospitals, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Killing Game Was A Virtual Reality Simulation (Dangan Ronpa), Nonbinary Shinguji Korekiyo, Other, Others Show Up Briefly - Freeform, Post-Game, pre-game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:15:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27873669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UltimateProtagonistNerd/pseuds/UltimateProtagonistNerd
Summary: A group of teenagers are selected to participate in a killing game, to be broadcast live to an audience. After it happens, they aren't supposed to remember who they were before entering. But the human mind seems to retain what matters.
Relationships: Shinguji Korekiyo/Yumeno Himiko
Series: HimiKiyo Week Content [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2042371
Comments: 4
Kudos: 4
Collections: himikiyo week





	Day 1:  A Promise, Again

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Himikiyo Week 2020!

The acceptance letter sat on the desk, next to where they were typing right now. It was the one escape from this life that seemingly only kept going downhill, yet they still dreaded opening it. A big seal of Team Danganronpa’s logo stared up in a way that almost felt like the parchment was mocking them. Mocking them for being so broken they would join in instead of continuing to watch on the sidelines. They didn’t know anyone else in person who’d even auditioned for the killing game. Online it was slightly different, some of the others who were trying to get in were on a chat server full of fans of the Danganronpa television show, and later they would be invited to a much smaller one when the showrunner for the season, Tsumugi Shirogane, was whittling it down to the list of finalists.

Kiyo thought back to the original audition, reminded of it by the unfinished draft of their last letter to their family. A draft that’s been written and deleted and re-written multiple times just today alone. And that’s before mentioning the past week or two before the letter came in.

Standing tall in that room and having to admit how frightening it was to be there, but it was all they could do. Their mind playing it back. “I was given number 199. I’m Korekiyo and I’m here today because I’ve seen some of the worst ugliness humanity is responsible for. Some of the worst being among my own family, it’s not a very great situation with them.” The pre-planned lines on their note card interrupted by a hacking cough. It wasn’t anything too bad, Kiyo was just sickly.

“My apologies. As I was saying… I am unsure what my talent would be, but I hope I stand out in some way. Outside of horror media, one of my escapes is reading old folk tales, and I don’t think there’s been a folklorist or cultural anthropologist yet. I’ve generally enjoyed the vibes of the serial killer characters and those that break taboos. Therefore I would appreciate it if I were considered for such a role in the plot.”

Kiyo looked back over the letter, head slowly shaking. With a sigh they decided it was fine to wrap it up the way it is finally. There’s no use agonizing any longer because those people didn’t deserve such a well thought out final letter.

That’s when Kiyo opened up the seal with a small knife and finally read it. The big day was on Saturday, the accepted students would meet back at the headquarters, be given a dorm room to themselves, and allowed to get to know each other in person as a few of them turned down invites to the private server and in-person was very much different than online anyway.

They grinned a little bit upon reaching the bottom.

You are now Korekiyo Shinguji, the Ultimate Anthropologist.

The day finally arrived and Korekiyo left behind the letter on the dining room table before taking the bus alone to Team Danganronpa’s campus. Just a backpack and a rolling suitcase in tow. Not a whole lot was needed because by the end of this game there was a very real possibility that they would be dead and gone.

After being shown the room they were instructed to go to the main hall for the cast and sit on one of the provided bleachers. Kiyo sat and eventually another contestant walked up, a shorter red-headed girl with a lethargic looking expression. “Mind if I sit here?” she asked.

“Not at all.” Kiyo said politely. “You must be Himiko, correct?”

“Mhm.” She didn’t seem happy to be here in the slightest.

She probably wasn’t happy with being alive, period. Kiyo immediately thought as they caught themselves accidentally staring at her too long while reading her habits.

“So, um…” she started briefly before trailing off. “Then that means you’re probably Korekiyo.”

“Indeed I am.” 

“I’m glad you made it on.” she smiled the first one they’d seen on her. This was the first in-person meeting, but they started getting closer over the last couple of weeks in the group chats.and DMs. Most of the rest of the cast would joke there should be a romance arc between the two of them. That would certainly keep up since a couple of the others started coming closer after noticing Himiko leaning on Kiyo’s shoulder half-asleep already.

Introductions went about as smoothly as you could with a group of killing game fans could possibly go. A few of them just wanted to get it done and go to their assigned rooms without having to deal with people. Either because of some deep misanthropy or possibly some of them wanting to make it easy for themselves.

When the latter feeling was expressed openly by a boy introducing himself as Shuichi, Tsumugi the showrunner spoke up. “Um actually. None of you guys are going to remember any of this happening, so you can go ahead and get as close as you’d like to!”

“We’re not… going to remember?” The tallest student, Gonta, asked.

“Nope! Like I said Gonta, you should have read the contracts thoroughly before signing.” she was unnerving in how happy and bubbly she was. She rubbed Kiyo the wrong way. 

“Alright then, my bad I guess.” Gonta responded. “I don’t mind that at all.”

“I have a question!” a short boy with purple hair piped up.

“Go ahead, Kokichi.”

“Would you do something to punish someone if they do end up remembering after the reset?” His question was ominous enough any small conversation going halted. He sounded like somebody who was planning something, Kiyo assumed he was wanting to cheat to win the game but couldn’t know for sure. 

“Not really... “ Tsumugi tapped her pen on her chin. “I don’t think that’s very likely, but it did happen a couple times before so we have protocols for that.”

Kokichi was a familiar name to anyone who was active either in online games or the DR fandom, he was an internet troll that got popular livestreaming his antics both in-game and in real life.

Aside from him, Rantaro was probably the most recognizable because of his presence in the previous season. The fact that he’d been there before gave him the title Ultimate Survivor, and he was a favorite to win the whole game this time around after choosing to sacrifice himself by returning for this season. 

Everyone split off in their own directions eventually after a few more things about the situation were explained to them and they were told how they would be wiped and replaced with fictional personas based on their audition tapes and writer discretion. 

Kiyo went with Himiko and had a conversation that kept going for hours, interrupted only by the dinner break. It was like the two finally felt able to dump everything off their chests to each other. Every complaint, every pain, every favorite DR character or game, family life or lack thereof. The reasoning for joining, even hopes of what to do should either of them become survivors like Rantaro.

It was then that Himiko looked up and said “You’ve always been so good to me this whole time. I know it has only been a little while and this might be sudden but if we live, I want us to-” 

And that’s where the memory cuts off. Before Kiyo knew it it faded and crumbled like old footage reels too damaged to continue on. They were in a futuristic chamber somewhere all of a sudden. It was like waking up from the Matrix. Pods lined the walls on either side. Their breath hitched in their throat and they coughed, shaking with their exit. It was hard to stand straight up but they managed.

With all senses gathered again, they scanned the room. There were 16 pods, they felt a sense of deja vu, they had to have seen this before. The realization hit: 6 of the other pods were open. The one they just emerged from made the total 7. 

A monotone voice crackled on an intercom. “Welcome back to the real world, Korekiyo.” 

It wasn’t anybody the Anthropologist recognized, so it was probably just a staff member. They wouldn’t get to place it though as an excruciating pain all over shot through them and they fell, unable to move quick enough to break it.

They woke up with an arm draped around Himiko, who was buried in their chest. She was snoring softly and although it was dark it clearly smelled of their own dorm room during the killing game. All was fine in this state. 

Something just seemed to draw her to them this whole time. The only thing that made them feel a tinge of sadness was knowing she couldn’t know what they’d done because it would hurt her.

The next night was when they stayed behind longer to enact the murder plan, reluctantly turning Himiko away after a visit to their lab. She agreed and wished them well. 

Kiyo woke up once again in treatment in some kind of hospital. They had no idea what had gone on in the killing game since exiting the program. It was hard to remember now what parts were recent and which parts were longer ago.

They didn’t openly discuss Danganronpa with the staff, even though a few of them brought it up, so they just pretended to not remember what that was or what they had to do with it. It certainly seemed to work in getting the nurses to leave the topic be at a certain point. Kiyo more or less wished that was true. Remembering the time from before and during the killing game was a bit too much to have constantly in their head. Worst of all was the fact someone who wanted to escape and fell in love with them not once but twice surely was glad for that they were “dead” for all intents and purposes.

Each day all they did was lay around listening to a selection of audiobooks or music, occasionally being fed. Day in and day out was the same routine. The days all blurred into weeks. The only change being they eventually started learning to walk and gain various motor skills again in physical therapy sessions, necessary because of the burns from the simulation actually giving them nerve damage as if it was real. 

That was everything, until visitors finally came. The door was flung open while they were listening to a lecture about memory manipulation to try and understand the specifics of what was done to them and they managed to hit pause and sit up more properly with the help of the bed’s settings.

The guest standing out front was shocking. “Himiko?” The question could hardly come out before she ran up, arms thrown around them. Behind her was Shuichi Saihara and Maki Harukawa and unbelievably enough, one of their murder victims: Angie Yonaga.

“I missed you so much. Don’t worry any more okay, we came back. The 3 of us, Shuichi, Maki, and I got out and... and I just have so much to say...” she was already blubbering tears on their shoulders. And not missing a beat one of their arms managed to wrap around her in return. “The killing game is over. We won it, but we never expected you guys would be alive out here ahead of us.”

Her presence and warmth was already so unexpected, so unreal feeling, they weren’t sure where to begin because they might not have ended on the best terms after the exchanges during and following the class trial for the double murder. They weren’t used to the thought that someone might accept them after what happened. What fell out was a weak half-choked up “You don’t despise me?”

“Of course not, how could I when you weren’t the real enemy?”

Kiyo had already lied enough to the others in the room, so they decided not to bother pretending not to remember. “Team Danganronpa was, I take it?”

She nodded, letting them go reluctantly. “Yeah. it’ll all be okay right? You don’t hurt too much do you?” She seemed to remember what led them to be hospitalized.

“I’m numb and have taken my medicine recently, so no you have not harmed me.”

She sighed with relief. “Still, I’m sorry okay. I wasn’t exactly thinking, I just got so happy that you weren’t actually dead. I got a little bit carried away.”

Before Kiyo knew it everyone was sitting in a bit of a circle of chairs, some light conversation taking place as they settled in a bit more. Maki seemed the most reluctant to speak, but mentioned she was only here because Himiko asked her to come along for support. 

It turned out that when they came to the 3 of them freaked out a little bit due to waking back up in that place. It was a lengthy explanation and Kiyo couldn’t quite follow it all. Some stuff about being the last humans, on a last ditch mission on a spaceship. Or weird stuff about having been students at Hope’s Peak, which the former Ultimate Anthropologist knew had been a fictional location. Then they found that out too, which is why it was shocking to wake back up in a place like that.

But then they proceeded to open up all the pods, except for two they couldn’t open. Similarly a voice came over the speakers and they were ushered out before figuring it out any further than one held the AI that was Kiibo and the other was most likely Tsumugi Shirogane, possibly even her actual dead body. 

“Apparently us 3 survivors are going to get a pretty big payout for winning. I don’t know what the status is for future seasons. They wouldn’t tell us so... I only know I want you to come with us, when you've recovered enough to be discharged.”

Yet again the mage managed to surprise. “So you mean exactly like you promised before-”

“Yes. Of course, I wouldn’t have promised it twice if I didn’t mean it.” she held their hand, gently sweeping a thumb over it. 

“Well, I suppose the third time really is the charm.”


End file.
